Sony Ericsson Xperia X12 Won't Have Gingerbread

Despite some speculation that it would be one of the first devices to run Android 2.3, or Gingerbread, out of the box, it appears now that Sony Ericsson’s Anzu (or X12 as it will be called at launch) will run the bog standard Android 2.2 when launched in early 2011.

Sony Ericsson’s successor to its moderately successful Xperia X10 was rumoured to be one of the first devices to run Android 2.3 but a preview from Russian mobile maestro Eldar Murtazin has quashed any hopes of this happening. The Russian reviewer got his hands on a preview unit and his report left us far from salivating about this impending release. While the unit he saw was running Android 2.1, it is believed the X12 will ship with Froyo.

Sony Ericsson seems to once again be the late comer to the party. Earlier this week we brought you news of a Windows Phone 7 device from the manufacturer to come in 2011 – several months after most other manufacturers brought phones to market. Once again the reported specs for the X12 seem to leave it in the wake of other device which have been on the market for several months or more.
The X12 features a 4.3" LCD screen with 854 x 480 resolution similar in specs to the one used in X10 (which says it all really). The new phone is thinner and lighter than the previous iteration but, if Murtazin is to be believed, some of the quality feel of the X10 has been lost with the new model.

Inside it is powered by an 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7230, which will seem puny in comparison to the rumoured dual-core processors due to come online in the very near future. The 12-megapixel camera was not working properly on the preview model and can only record in 720p when working – which will probably be lower than the 1020p standard early next year.

All this leaves Sony Ericsson at the kid’s table when it comes to top-end mobile phones. It is entering a market where it cannot hope to compete with the likes of the iPhone4, the HTC Desire HD or the recently revealed Nexus S. No price point for the phone or a concrete release date have been announced as of yet but the sooner the better for the X12 you’d imagine.